Pumpkin Carving 2013

Aaron and I hauled our pumpkins home to PA and carved them at my grandmother's house. Note the pug hovering in the background. Those two LOVE to eat raw pumpkin!

They got little snips and chunks all night as we carved. At one point I caught Oscar starting to gnaw on Aaron's unsupervised pumpkin.

I ended up chopping up the bits of pumpkin we cut away and stroring it in a container to feed the pugs as treats later one.

Aaron thought the pumpkin guts were tasty too! (No, not really)

A shout out to this magnificent pumpkin carving tool my friend Joel made. I posted about a rather expensive high end carving set I saw online and he offered this up. This thing means business. It cut through pumpkin like butter and I was a little afraid of it. I think it could have taken my finger off too.

Tah-da! Our jack-o-lanterns this year. Aaron's is on the left, mine on the right. My Dad said they kinda look like us.

Yeah maybe they do.

Mmmm. Those seeds didn't go to waste. Roasted them with butter and salt. Next year I'm going to try some more adventurous flavors.

Note - I looked for Snack Jacks at Wickham Farms, those amazing hull-less seed pumpkins I love, and they didn't have any this year! Bummer!

Pumpkin Picking 2013

This is one of my favorite times of the year and I enjoy throwing a pumpkin carving party and Halloween dinner in October. This month has been unusually busy with our epic trip to Switzerland so it's just been Aaron and I (oh and the pugs) for our October traditions this year. Dialed back a bit but still memorable.

We swung over to Wickham Farms to get our pumpkins with Oscar and Hugo and there were photo ops everywhere.

I love this shot of Aaron staging the pugs for a pumpkin picture. Hugos eyes were practically bugging out of his head trying to take in all the activity while Oscar just went with the flow.

Look at that smile on Oscar's face!

Sometimes they get tired of me taking tons of picutures.

Aaron was on the hunt for THE largest pumpkin in the joint.

He found it.

I keep thinking I need to scale back and try to find a pumpkin that will be easy to carve.

That never seems to happen. This one was soooo heavy but he went into the cart.

The pugs are one pumpkin tall.

I wanted to get some decorative pumpkins but quickly realized they were not going to fit into the back of the Smart Car with two pugs and two ginormous pumpkins. Oscar is clearly concerned about the situation. We got everyone home in one piece, rest assured.

Monster Cereal - Yummy Mummy & Frute Brute

I love cereal and this time of year, I especially love monster cereal. You know... General Mills monster themed cereal with little marshmallows. Booberry and Frankenberry are my favorite.

This year I was able to use my new Cuppow BENTO cup to transport the milk for my cereal in a mason jar to the office for breakfast.

I was stunned when Aaron came home from Wegmans one night with a monster cereal I'd never had before! Yummy Mummy!

Turns out it's not new and it's not the only one I didn't know about.

There are FIVE monster cereals and this year they re-released Yummy Mummy along with another one I'd never heard of, Frute Brute.

Yummy Mummy was like orange creamsicle. I havn't been able to find the Frute Brute. BooBerry is still my favorite.

Swiss Chalets & Houses

As you might expect the architecture was interesting in Switzerland.

The houses were so perfectly "Swiss Chalet" just like on postcards. Especially out in the alps, the farm houses were adorable and every window had an over flowing flower box.

It's just amazing how they built houses very high into the alps in spots you had to wonder how they were able to reach.

Such detail. Even looking up you were treated to designs on the undersides of overhanging roofs.

Love all the flowers. I saw this consistently throughout Switzerland. They took a lot of care to decorate with planted flowers.

Colors and textures!

Who wouldn't love living here?

And so many of the houses were quite, quite old. I'm not sure what they feed their flowers in Switzerland (milk?) but it's working.

I'm inspired to pay more attention to the window boxes on our own house now!

This is the last of the Switzerland post! I think I've got it out of my system now. Time for fall and Hallowene posts!

Swiss Bikes

Bike were everywhere in Switzerland... just as in everyother European country I've visited. The train stations had "bike parking lots" that were jammed full.

Bikes in Europe are great... so well built with special details. Look at the leather seat on this one!

Did you know... "In Almost Every European Country, Bikes Are Outselling New Cars"? We could use a little bit of that.

Shops in Bern and Thun

While Aaron was in class in Switzerland (which was the entire point of the trip) I had time to wander around Bern and Thun. Unlike the US shops close early, 5pm and are not open on Sundays. When they were open, I enjoyed browsing and window shopping.

Even if it's raining in Bern, you can stay nice and dry as you are shopping because all the streets have arcades. After the city burned down in 1405, it was decided that all sidewalks should be covered with covered sandstone arcades.

Albert Einstein even wrote to his fiancée in 1902.. "Both sides of the road are completely lined by old arcades so that one can stroll from one end of the city to the other in the worst downpour without getting noticeably wet,"

Another unique feature in Bern was the use of basement space. Along the street you would see cellar doors similar to what Dorthy was trying to get to during the Wizard of Oz tornado.

The Bernese make good use of these basements by occupying them with shops.

You could even find cafes down through those cellar doors.

Similarly, in Thun, there were two levels of shops. Not necessarily basements... but there were ground level shops which then had sidewalks on their roofs with access to another level of shops.

Fodor says it better... "On the Old Town's main shopping thoroughfare pedestrians stroll along flowered terrace sidewalks built on the roofs of the stores' first floors and climb down stone stairs to visit the "sunken" street-level shops."

Such good use of space.

Swiss Doors

There are so many interesting details to take in when traveling in old cities. We kept pointing out the ornate doors. And what is that little thing on the lower left?

Aaron thought the doors were way too short.

See what I mean? Look at these lion door handles.

Swiss Water & Fountains

One of Aaron's Swiss classmates told me that Switzerland's only natural resource is water. It flows down from the Alps and is fresh and clean. Pictured above is a grate that covers a stream that flows under the main street Kramgasse (Grocers Alley). Apparently is used to be open, but too many cars drove into it and got stuck so they placed grates over it.

Every city we visited seemed to have a large amount of fountains. Especially Bern! Bern has over 100 fountains! Many of them have decorative sculptures which are listed here.

The strangest one is this Kindlifresserbrunnenm aka ogre eating babies. Wha?!

These Brunnen (fountains), used to be the city's water sources and meeting spots. They can be found throughout the city.

The Zähringerbrunnen fountain in front of the Zytglogge. Check out the girl drinking from it on this website. Oh and here.

All the Swiss kept telling us we could drink the water from the fountains as many do. They said it was clean and fresh. The cleanest water in the world. Aaron didn't hesitate.

I got sick once in Italy from drinking the water but I finally gave in. I'm happy to report neither of us got sick.

Smashed Swiss coins

I have been collection smashed pennies from tourist spots for many years now so I got pretty excited when I saw what I thought was a penny smasher in Switzerland. But they don't have pennies in Switzerland so it was a Swiss Franc smasher!

I only found one more machine, at the top of Jungfrau but they will certainly stand out in my smashed coin collection.

Bears in Switzerland

I mentioned before how bears were a sort of mascot of Bern, Switzerland.

It seems like I found bears all over Switzerland though.

On doors...

Murals...

Fountains...

The bear in this sculpture was an especially helpful sort of bear.